There have been many prior proposals for devices to assist females who are afflicted with incontinence and among the major problems which are not yet completely solved are the following:
(a) comfort to the wearer; PA1 (b) good sealing to preclude liquid escape; PA1 (c) minimizing impediment to movement of the wearer; PA1 (d) easy removability for cleaning or replacement.
There have been some proposals for devices to be worn entirely internally, and which assist the wearer in her own control of micturition as note Corey U.S. Pat. No. 4,139,006. Other devices which have been proposed are collection systems that are worn externally and are retained by the protrusion of some part of the device into the vagina as note, for example, Ratcliff et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,776,235 and Linden U.S. Pat. No. 3,661,155. Breece in U.S. Pat. No. 3,194,238 discloses a female incontinence device having an open-ended tube 12 of bellows or accordion formation which is intended to seal with skin surfaces surrounding the urethral orifice. While liquid sealing may be satisfactory upon initial donning of such devices, movement by the user is likely to disturb the spatial relationship between the parts of the device and hence the sealing will become less effective. Once the patient loses confidence in the effectiveness of the sealing provided by the device, it is unlikely that the particular design of device will be acceptable to that patient. The sealing problem is exacerbated by the wide variations in size and topography of the relevant parts of the female body.